NEW BOOK CHALLENGES SCIENTIFIC LEGITIMACY OF MULTIPLEPERSONALITY DISORDER

"Multiple Identities and False Memories: A SociocognitivePerspective" Likely to Stimulate Professional Debate

WASHINGTON -- Since the mid-1970s there has been tremendousgrowth in the diagnosis of Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) --the development of sometimes hundreds of separate personalitieswithin the same body, often ascribed to childhood physical orsexual abuse. But according to research psychologist Nicholas P.Spanos, Ph.D., Multiple Personality Disorder (recently renamedDissociative Identity Disorder or DID), is not a"disease" at all, but a "social construction"that serves the various purposes of MPD patients, theirtherapists and elements of society. He recommends that thediagnosis be abandoned.

"Multiple Identities and False Memories: A SociocognitivePerspective," published by the American PsychologicalAssociation (APA), was written by Dr. Spanos shortly before hisdeath in a plane crash in 1994. It is a wide-ranging andthoroughly documented examination of the scientific literature onthe phenomenon of Multiple Personality Disorder and its possibleconnection to recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse,reports of satanic ritual abuse, past-life regression and claimsof alien abduction.

One of the common threads running through these phenomena isthe use of hypnosis to retrieve "lost" memories andreveal hidden identities. Dr. Spanos, who was one of the world'sleading experts on the study of hypnosis, offers his conclusionthat some of the most common beliefs about hypnosis simply arenot true.

For example, Dr. Spanos cites and describes the many studiesthat demonstrate that hypnosis does not produce a unique state ofconsciousness (i.e., a trance state) and does not cause people tolose control of their senses, thought processes or behavior. Nordoes it improve the accuracy of recall. "Hypnoticbehavior," he writes, "is a goal-directed social actionand is much more ordinary than it initially appears." And,he argues, it is the misunderstanding of what hypnosis is -- andis not -- that is the base on which current theories of MPD, aswell as past-life regression and many of the therapies to recover"lost" memories, rests.

Dr. Spanos examines the concept of "multipleidentity" as it has manifested itself through history andacross cultures, examines the social, cultural and politicalcontexts in which it has arisen and concludes that the current"disease theory" of MPD, with its association withchildhood physical and especially sexual abuse, cannot"provide a general account of this phenomenon that takesinto consideration its cross-cultural and trans-historicalmanifestations."

He notes, for example, that the symptomatology of MPD itselfhas changed over time. In the 19th century, MPD patientstypically displayed no more than two or three "alter"personalities, all of which were human, and many of them engagedin some form of transitional behavior, such as sleep orconvulsions, to switch from one "alter" to another.Today, MPD patients display many more "alters,"sometimes into the hundreds, and sometimes those"alters" are animals or reincarnated past lives, andthe patients rarely engage in any transitional behavior whenswitching between and among them.

What has changed, Dr. Spanos argues, is not the"disease," but the social, political and economiccontexts in which the phenomenon of multiple identity hasoccurred over time and across cultures. In 16th- and 17th-centuryEurope, for example, there were frequent occurrences of people --usually women -- displaying more than one personality. Thedifference between now and then, he notes, is that in earliertimes, "alter" personalities were considered demons andwere diagnosed and treated (through exorcism) by priests.Meanwhile, in other cultures and in other times, there have been"spirit mediums," whose bodies were supposedlyinhabited by the personalities of the dead so they couldcommunicate with the living.

Whether enactments of multiple identities serve the purpose ofpromoting a religion (or denigrating another), identifying"witches," defrauding credulous customers or simplygetting care and attention for someone who feels they don't haveenough, Dr. Spanos argues that those enactments are guided byrules and expectations, specific to the time and culture in whichthey are manifest, that are understood and given legitimacy byboth the authority figures involved (be they members of theclergy or psychotherapists) and the observing audience.

For example, he notes that in today's North American culture,the concept of MPD is generally understood and widely accepted;it has been described and portrayed in numerous books, movies,documentaries and on daytime TV talk shows and techniques fordiagnosing it and treating it are presented at workshops andconferences. But, he points out, there is little if any evidencethat MPD occurs spontaneously, and while the number of those whodiagnose and treat it has grown tremendously in the past twodecades, many psychotherapists with long experience have neverseen a case of it. Dr. Spanos cites surveys suggesting that mostof the cases of MPD have been generated by relatively fewtherapists.

Why Here? Why Now?

Why MPD has become so prevalent in late-20th Century NorthAmerica is a complicated issue, Dr. Spanos writes. He contendsthat this has come about because of several factors, including aconvergence of several powerful social forces. General interestin MPD itself was renewed in the late 1950s and the early 1960sby the popular book and movie about a woman with MPD, The ThreeFaces of Eve. By the early 1970s there was growing societalawareness and concern about the issue of child abuse; at firstphysical abuse and then later child sexual abuse, culminating inaccusations of mass molestation and even ritual abuse of childrenin daycare centers. The enormously popular book and TV movieSybil in 1973 (about another woman with MPD) helped bring the twoissues -- MPD and child abuse -- together in the public mind.

Two other important phenomena occurred during the 1970s and1980s, Dr. Spanos notes: the growth of the feminist movement,whose social goals of such things as the right to abortion, payequity, encouragement of women to become economically self-sufficient were (and are) opposed by another growing social andpolitical force: the religious right. Ironically, Dr. Spanosobserves, elements of both forces have come to embrace the modernassociation between MPD and childhood sexual abuse; somefeminists believe that MPD, which rarely occurs in men, bringsrecognition to the problem of the sexual abuse of women whilesome on the religious right see MPD as evidence of the existenceof sexually abusive satanic cults.

The American Psychological Association (APA), in Washington,DC, is the largest scientific and professional organizationrepresenting psychology in the United States and is the world'slargest association of psychologists. APA's membership includesmore than 142,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultantsand students. Through its divisions in 49 subfields of psychologyand affiliations with 58 state, territorial and Canadianprovincial associations, APA works to advance psychology as ascience, as a profession and as a means of promoting humanwelfare. # # #

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